 Week 4, The One-Another Life “And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25 There's a version of encouragement that costs nothing. A quick “you've got this!” tossed over your shoulder on the way out the door. It's kind. It's not nothing. But it's not what the writer of Hebrews had in mind when he told the church to stir one another up. The Greek word behind “stir up” is paroxysmos — the word we get “paroxysm” from. It means a sharp provocation, an incitement, something closer to a jolt than a pat on the back. Paul uses the same word family elsewhere to describe a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:39). This is not gentle language. It's the language of friction — the kind that produces heat, and sometimes fire. So when Hebrews tells believers to “consider one another in order to provoke love and good works,” it's describing something more deliberate than a nice compliment. It's describing the work of watching someone closely enough to see what they can't yet see in themselves — and then saying it out loud, even when saying it out loud is uncomfortable. The Mentor as First Witness Every woman I've mentored has had a blind spot in the exact place where her gift lives. She doesn't see it because it feels ordinary to her — it's just how she is. The woman who always notices who's been left out and quietly makes room for them doesn't think of that as discernment or hospitality. She thinks of it as just being polite. The young mom who can explain a hard truth to a toddler with more patience and clarity than most seminary professors doesn't think of that as teaching. She thinks she's just getting through the bedtime routine. This is where the mentor's role becomes so specific. You are often the first person in her life whose job is to actually look — to watch for the callings that are hiding inside her habits — and then to name what you see. Not vaguely. Not in passing. Not as a throwaway compliment, but as an observation you're willing to stand behind: “I've watched you do this three times now, and I don't think it's an accident. I think this is who God made you to be.” Encouragement or Flattery? Ask These Two Questions. This is where a lot of well-meaning mentors get nervous, and rightly so. There is a version of “affirming her gifts” that is really just flattery wearing a spiritual costume — words that make a woman feel good in the moment but don't actually serve her. Scripture doesn't ask us to choose between truth and love; it asks us to hold them together (Ephesians 4:15). So how do you tell the difference between stirring someone up and simply stroking their ego? Ask what it costs you. Flattery is cheap to give because it asks nothing of the giver — it requires no observation, no relationship, no risk of being wrong. Real encouragement costs something: attention over time, the vulnerability of being specific, and the willingness to be wrong and corrected. If a compliment took you two seconds to think of, it's probably not what Hebrews means by provoking someone toward good works. Ask what it asks of her. Flattery leaves a woman exactly where she was, just feeling better about it. Biblical stirring always points somewhere — toward a next step, a good work, an act of love that requires her to actually move. “You're so gifted” is a compliment. “I think you should be the one to lead the new members' welcome table this fall, because I've seen how you make people feel safe” is a stir. One asks nothing. The other asks everything. “The Greek word here means to provoke — not to comfort. The mentor's job isn't to soothe you. It's to stir you.” Naming a Gift Well A few practices I've come back to again and again when I'm trying to call out a gift responsibly, rather than just handing out flattery:
It's paying attention on her behalf until she's able to pay that same attention to herself. This Is Not a Solo Job Here's the part of Hebrews 10 we tend to skip past: the command to stir one another up is given in the very same breath as the command not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together.” The two aren't separate ideas. Stirring happens in community, not in isolation. One mentor can see some of what a woman is capable of. A whole community sees more — different eyes catch different gifts, and a gift named once by one voice is confirmed and multiplied when it's echoed by several. That's exactly why equipping was never meant to be a private transaction between two women. It's a community act — which is the whole reason behind our Wisdom Well and Equip & Go content banks inside the Bridge The Gap membership. That type of content exists so the gift you name in one conversation doesn't stay contained to that conversation — it gets picked up, practiced, and confirmed by a wider circle of women who are all learning to ignite the fire in one another. Something to Sit With Who in your life is standing on a gift she can't yet see? What would it cost you to name it out loud this week — specifically, and with a next step attached? And just as important: who has stirred something in you that you were too close to see for yourself? Stirring isn't comfortable. It was never meant to be. But it's how fires get lit.
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Welcome to the MENTORING THAT MATTERS BLOG!
Mentoring at Bridge the Gap matters because it applies all the "one-another" passages in Scripture, which impact the lives of mentees and mentors as they follow Christ. The one-anothers in scripture speak to how we are to relate to and serve our fellow Christians. On Mentoring Matters, we will look at various aspects of one-another care and related topics. All posts are written by Ellen Castillo unless otherwise noted. 
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